This Is Not the Audience I Ordered

So, I've been thinking about some of the ways social media has evolved over the many years since I opened my very first account on my first platform. (Probably MySpace, because I'm just that old.) At this point, I've fully realized that social media and I are not on the same page about… well... me. Especially now that I've officially had my 50th birthday.

No, I'm not having one of my existential crises. More like I've finally just accepted that the GPS social media assigned me once upon a time has been calmly directing me into a lake for the past eleventy turns.

Because when I look at who I actually am, what I actually post, and who most of these platforms seem very determined to show me to, there’s this massive disconnect. It's always kind of been there, as I realize I'm very weird and even harder to categorize as a person. But it's also gotten worse as I've gotten older.

I don’t think it’s accidental, either.

The Audience I Actually Have vs. the One I'm Given

I’ve picked up people from all over the place over the 20+ years I've actually been on social media.

Art groups, comment sections, mutuals-of-mutuals, the occasional stranger who liked one thing and stayed for reasons unknown, you name it. It’s a very mixed crowd, filled with folks of different ages from different backgrounds who have lots of different reasons for being there.

Some like my weird Midjourney experiments, while others first came my way because of my writing. Some apparently just vibe with my general take on life or the way I can't even repost a meme without low-key overthinking it.

My collective follower list reads like a giant accidental soup into which some chef threw everything but the kitchen sink, and I've always loved that about it.

But then there’s the audience algorithms actually show my stuff to, which appears to be a very specific subset of humanity.

In my case, social algorithms seem less interested in showing my stuff to people who've chosen to follow me or to people with similar interests and more bent on assuming my stuff could only potentially appeal to other people my same age or older.

It’s like hosting a party where half your guests somehow wound up quietly redirected to a different house. Meanwhile, the remaining ones all somehow have the same "I want to speak to the manager" haircut (that I myself don't actually have, FYI).

The Parasocial Circus (Now Featuring Unsolicited Soulmates, Apparently)

Then there's this other type that social media seems deeply invested in delivering straight to my digital doorstep.

Maybe you already know the type I'm talking about.

They’re thirsty men (my age and older, of course) who have apparently decided, within approximately six minutes of landing on my profile, that there is a profound and possibly cosmic connection at play. I become, apparently, central to their emotional narrative in that moment, despite the fact that I already have a husband, post a grand total of zero thirst traps, and am not particularly friendly.

Occasionally, it will be another woman my age who decides I'm the answer to whatever vast pit of middle-aged loneliness she's fallen into. But the minute it becomes clear that I'm not in the market for a new best friend (or interested in making it her), I get to hear all about what a self-absorbed bitch I am.

Parasocial energy is a very specific energy. It’s also an energy I have never once encouraged, rewarded, or particularly engaged with, which makes its persistence even more impressive.

It’s like the algorithm sees me minding my own business and goes, “Nah.”

To be clear, most people are pretty normal as far as how they behave. But the fact that the same kinds of interactions keep showing up, over and over, starts to feel less like a coincidence and more like a trap powered by a recommendation engine with a very skewed understanding of me.

The Gaslighting of "It's Your Content"

Maybe you know this song, too. In fact, you probably do if you struggle to achieve the reach you know your posts deserve.

If your reach is low, your content must not be good enough. If something flops, you should try different formats, better hooks, more visuals, maybe a carousel. And have you considered smiling more? Everybody loves a smiler, after all.

Meanwhile, you watch some 20-something steal your exact content from your page and repost it themselves —sometimes word for word and image for image — and it takes off like it just got cast in the latest summer blockbuster.

Same content. Very different outcome.

At some point, you really have to acknowledge the pattern you're seeing. Social media isn’t the meritocracy the Zucks of the world want you to think it is. It’s partially about distribution and timing. But the rest is controlled by invisible levers being pulled in rooms you’re not in and were never invited to.

And yet the advice never changes.

Difficulty is always framed as a personal failing. You're always told you just haven’t cracked the code yet, so keep feeding the machine. Which is funny, because your version of the “code” seems to work perfectly fine when someone else runs it.

What I'm Actually Doing There, Given the Circumstances

Years ago, I used to worry a lot about whether I eventually "made it" on whatever platforms I was on, including social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. So, I also invested a lot of time and energy into doing things "right."

But I’m not online to perform intimacy for strangers anymore.

I’m not here to be endlessly available or to cultivate a sense of access that I don’t actually care to maintain. I’m not interested in building a brand around being “approachable” in the way most platforms seem to reward, either. My life isn't an open house where every visitor is automatically welcome in every room.

I’m here to make things and to share them, without handing over the keys to my inner world to anyone interested in them.

That means I ignore a lot of DMs these days — most DMs, if I'm being honest here. I engage when something genuinely interests me, not because I’m trying to keep some invisible scorecard loaded in my favor.

From the outside, I probably look incredibly standoffish. But from the inside, it’s the only way this even works for me anymore. Especially given the fact that I'm more into writing long-form content these days than I am in posting memes and quick-fire updates.

So these days, I’m posting what I want to post. Writing what I want to write. Sharing things that feel aligned with whatever this is that I'm building at this point in my life, even if whatever platform occasionally looks at it like, “Well, we don’t even know what to do with this.”

That’s fine. It doesn’t have to know.

Because if there’s one thing I’m not confused about, it’s that I know.